Bat shit insane group say dinosaurs are a lie

[dragon]

I honesty don't know about some people. At least there's only 4000 of them

A parent, who's part of a group that believes dinosaurs are one big lie, is getting international attention after making an angry post on a parenting site.

The writer starts the rant with, "I am getting sick and tired of dinosaurs being forced on our children."

The page long diatribe against dinosaurs on the popular parenting site mumsnet.com quickly set off a flurry of mockery and went viral, the Mirror reports.

The writer thinks the scientific evidence for dinosaurs is scant and also claims they set a bad example for children. The writer illustrates the point with an anecdote:

"At my children's school, several children were left in tears after one of their classmates (who had evidently been exposed to dinosaurs) became bestially-minded and ran around the classroom roaring and pretending to be a dinosaur. Then he bit three children on the face."


The writer even opposes toy dinosaurs:

"Recently my sister foolishly gave my two youngest some dinosaur toys for Christmas. After telling her to get out of my house, I burnt the dinosaurs. My children were delighted because they know that dinosaurs are evil. I am fortunate that my family has been very supportive, and has disowned my children's former aunt."


The writer is part of a Facebook group called "Christians Against Dinosaurs" which has nearly 4,000 members. While its unclear if the group is satirical or serious, they do claim to be working to remove dinosaurs from school curriculums.

In the United States, many Evangelical Christians believe in dinosaurs, but they believe dinosaurs shared the Earth with humans. However, scientific evidence indicates a mass extinction event wiped out most dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Humans didn't start evolving until six million years ago.

Most of the other parents on mumsnet found the anti-dinosaur post funny. One other writer posted, "Hahahaha... Maybe the big skeletons are the scientific community having fun with papier mache?"

Another writer said, "But what about Barney? Will nobody think of Barney???!"

The original poster responded to several posts leading to additional mocker

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[Borgholio]

I guess a bigger question is, are loonies like this becoming more numerous or have they always been there, just that the internet allows them to get more attention than in past generations?

[Zixinus]

I guess a bigger question is, are loonies like this becoming more numerous or have they always been there, just that the internet allows them to get more attention than in past generations?

Probably a mix of both. There have always been crazy people but the internet allows them to find each other and breed. In more ways than one.

Plus the thing about the massive amount of information that the internet provides is that people without built-in filters (due to the lack of intelligence, education, wisdom or other) tend to get stuck on the bullshit stuff. Content engines nowadays try to find stuff based on your previous record, so if you are vulnerable to this sort of stupid stuff and you have a record of it, the content engines will try to provide more.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Probably a mix of both. There have always been crazy people but the internet allows them to find each other and breed. In more ways than one.

Plus the thing about the massive amount of information that the internet provides is that people without built-in filters (due to the lack of intelligence, education, wisdom or other) tend to get stuck on the bullshit stuff. Content engines nowadays try to find stuff based on your previous record, so if you are vulnerable to this sort of stupid stuff and you have a record of it, the content engines will try to provide more.

Yeah. There is a certain type of personality who will essentially form their opinion on an issue based on the first thing they read/hear about that subject, regardless of how idiotic that viewpoint may be, without bothering to do the due diligence in researching the subject. Hell, I bet a lot of people on this site are guilty of this as well, but to a less extreme/ridiculous degree (how many times have you read one news story about something and formed an impassioned opinion on what is going on before all the facts come out? It happens every time there is a police shooting thread, for example).

In addition to whatever the general proportion of crazy/dumb people in the population happens to be, I'd have to think that there is also a boost given by people who are more intellectually lazy than outright insane. Although the vocal leader of this anti-dinosaur group is clearly out of her damn mind (she disowned a family member over toy dinosaurs ... I mean my god that is sickening), I wouldn't be surprised if a decent number of the members of the group are just generically stupid and lazy rather than batshit.

[Eternal_Freedom]

So your sister buys your kids a Christmas present....and you throw her out of your house, burn the dinosaurs and disown your sister. What the fuck?

[Borgholio]

So your sister buys your kids a Christmas present....and you throw her out of your house, burn the dinosaurs and disown your sister. What the fuck?

She doesn't know it, but she's better off now.

[Lagmonster]

This is probably an elaborate troll job. I know there are people who will shoot you in the name of religion, but this reads like someone's parody of a fundie.

[Sidewinder]

So your sister buys your kids a Christmas present....and you throw her out of your house, burn the dinosaurs and disown your sister. What the fuck?

She doesn't know it, but she's better off now.

I've compared such family members to limbs with malignant tumors, which require amputation because of these tumors. The cutoff may be necessary, but it is not painless; one is still left with a desire for the family to be "whole," though in an idealized manner that cannot exist in real life.

[muse]

Have you ever seen a real dinosaur? Exactly. The dinosaurs are a lie.

[Borgholio]

Have you ever seen a real dinosaur? Exactly. The dinosaurs are a lie.

Aside from a myriad of skeletons, fossils, and birds...I can't say I've ever seen a real dinosaur.

[muse]

Aside from a myriad of skeletons, fossils, and birds...I can't say I've ever seen a real dinosaur.

A turkey isn't a T-Rex, and those skeletons are clearly some sort of Mastodon that was put together wrong.

[Simon_Jester]

Mastodons are also clearly not real.

[muse]

So how do you explain this? Mastodon. Totally real.

[Sir Sirius]

These people should get together with dinosaur porn readers.

[Iroscato]

These people should get together with dinosaur porn readers.

I'm not sure we would - ERM I MEAN they would get along, somehow.
It's a sad state of affairs how so little can shock me these days. I just went through a phase of looking up 'moon hologram' on youtube. Good way to have a laugh and simultaneously chip away at your will to live. After that...everything's fair game.

[Flagg]

Umm, isn't the official position of the Mormon Corporation/ "Church" that dinosaur fossils are a hoax?

[biostem]

I can appreciate wanting to be able to teach your own children, but IMO it should be illegal to teach children things that are not demonstrably true. You want to teach that there are/were no dinosaurs, or that the earth is only 6000 years old? You better be able to provide peer-reviewed, evidence-based studies to that effect, (and said peer review must be done by credited scientists and/or experts in their field - no "Doctors" who got their degree from some diploma mill or have said degree in a completely unrelated field, like being a dentist, but touting your title around as relevant to other fields).

[The Romulan Republic]

I can appreciate wanting to be able to teach your own children, but IMO it should be illegal to teach children things that are not demonstrably true. You want to teach that there are/were no dinosaurs, or that the earth is only 6000 years old? You better be able to provide peer-reviewed, evidence-based studies to that effect, (and said peer review must be done by credited scientists and/or experts in their field - no "Doctors" who got their degree from some diploma mill or have said degree in a completely unrelated field, like being a dentist, but touting your title around as relevant to other fields).

That would criminalize teaching your children anything that is debatable or a matter of personal opinion. It would be a grotesque violation of freedom of expression.

[Purple]

I can appreciate wanting to be able to teach your own children, but IMO it should be illegal to teach children things that are not demonstrably true. You want to teach that there are/were no dinosaurs, or that the earth is only 6000 years old? You better be able to provide peer-reviewed, evidence-based studies to that effect, (and said peer review must be done by credited scientists and/or experts in their field - no "Doctors" who got their degree from some diploma mill or have said degree in a completely unrelated field, like being a dentist, but touting your title around as relevant to other fields).

That would criminalize teaching your children anything that is debatable or a matter of personal opinion. It would be a grotesque violation of freedom of expression.

Whilst you are right in general there is a good argument to be made toward limiting it, even if not to the extreme B wants. For example you could make it illegal to teach children things that are demonstratively false as being true if they clash with the official school curriculum on the subject.

[The Romulan Republic]

I can appreciate wanting to be able to teach your own children, but IMO it should be illegal to teach children things that are not demonstrably true. You want to teach that there are/were no dinosaurs, or that the earth is only 6000 years old? You better be able to provide peer-reviewed, evidence-based studies to that effect, (and said peer review must be done by credited scientists and/or experts in their field - no "Doctors" who got their degree from some diploma mill or have said degree in a completely unrelated field, like being a dentist, but touting your title around as relevant to other fields).

That would criminalize teaching your children anything that is debatable or a matter of personal opinion. It would be a grotesque violation of freedom of expression.

Whilst you are right in general there is a good argument to be made toward limiting it, even if not to the extreme B wants. For example you could make it illegal to teach children things that are demonstratively false as being true if they clash with the official school curriculum on the subject.

Then the government simply needs to make something part of the school curriculum to outlaw dissenting opinions.

[Purple]

Then the government simply needs to make something part of the school curriculum to outlaw dissenting opinions.

I guess. But you'd imagine that there was some sort of sane and academic oversight of what goes in there and not just the whims of a random despot. Bottom line is that you have to start trusting the government at some point. Because if you don't and you instead insist on curbing any and all avenues of potential abuse you'll end up with a government that can't do anything.

[biostem]

I should have been more clear - I was referring to things like hard sciences. Sure, there is a time and a place to teach softer subjects, like philosophy, art, music, etc, but to teach creationism or religious dogma as though it were indisputable, verifiable truth, is just wrong. I don't even see this as an issue of parents' rights - it's to protect children from the whims of those parents that willingly or neglectfully teach their children "facts" that are just plain wrong.

[Adam Reynolds]

Umm, isn't the official position of the Mormon Corporation/ "Church" that dinosaur fossils are a hoax?

Not quite, but they did disprove their own holy books via genetic testing based on their research into genealogy. Their work in genealogy is caused by their belief in baptism of the dead(which caused quite a scandal when they baptized holocaust victims).

In the Book of Mormon(what the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith created by staring into a hat to translate a set of gold plates) there were two warring groups in the Americas before Columbus. There were the purely good light skinned Nephites and purely bad dark skinned Lamanites(until 1978 Mormons followed the Mark of Cain doctrine, forbidding black members from being ordained). After the Lamanites killed off the Nephites, they became Native Americans.

The problem is that both groups were supposedly one of the tribes of Israel. Genetics has shown that Native Americans are genetically related to Asia, thus making the beliefs of the Book of Mormon hard to reconcile with what they had shown. This is in addition to the numerous references to European technology that did not exist in America before Columbus. The two big issues are references to steel, which never existed, and horses, which archaeological evidence showed dying off long before the Book of Mormon.

In case one is wondering how I know all of this, my sister converted to Mormonism when we were both teenagers and thus the rest of my family took the same initial lessons from the Missionaries as she did. I simply researched it and questioned everything, she didn't. My parents also failed to convert. My Mom is more or less agnostic while my Dad claims himself to simply be a heathen.

[General Zod]

I don't really know how this is any crazier than idiots like Ken Ham and his creation museum.

[Ralin]

I don't really know how this is any crazier than idiots like Ken Ham and his creation museum.

Attempting to explain away dinosaurs and evolution is still a few notches up from flat out refusing to recognize the evidence's existence. They may be stupid and wrong, but a creationist who tries to rationalize things is at least thinking, and that gives you something to work with.